


Almost a Match

by Vector



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Community: het_challenge, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-15
Updated: 2008-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vector/pseuds/Vector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For prompt: <i>Finding Chane in Manhattan</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost a Match

"You don't know anything about this woman, Claire. What if she says yes, you marry her, and then you can't stand her?"

Luck finds Claire truly incomprehensible sometimes. It's one thing to propose to random women. But he'd thought the worst that could happen to Claire was to be rejected—he rarely stuck around long enough for any other consequences to catch up with him. This—

"That won't happen." Claire's smile doesn't even break.

"Why not?"

"If she says yes, she's the one for me. Because the world—"

"Right, of course." Luck interrupts, sighing. "I'm just concerned for you, Claire."

Claire shrugs into his coat. "Don't be," he says with a grin, and then leaves.

***

Chane hasn't gotten a chance to work on her knives since the train. The noise could have brought someone to check on her. Everyone's out now, though, and her knives need the treatment. Her nerves, on edge for days, ease somewhat as the silence of her room is broken intermittently by the sounds of her sharpening.

She wipes down her second blade, sets it aside and picks up a third.

The edge on this one is chipped, scratched and fractured. Probably unsalvageable. It wasn't really meant for piercing metal.

_Why did I do that?_ she thinks.

She doesn't mean stabbing through the traincar, of course. She's thinking about that man again.

She sets the knife aside and walks to the window. The calm of this house makes that night on the train seem almost like a dream. The events are so bizarre that she has trouble believing them in retrospect. Why would that man, soaked in blood, have smiled at her and told her that he wouldn't die? Why would he possibly have asked her to marry him?

She'd told him she would wait. It seems silly, now—there's no way he will come looking for her, and she can't, in truth, wait forever. And yet still she's here, with these people who are nothing to her, because something inside her tells her to stay.

Something catches her eye on the ledge outside the window. Metal, visible over the bottom of the window frame. Strange. She slides the window open carefully.

The metal is the hilt of a knife, curled ornately. The knife itself is in a well-made leather sheath, and the whole thing is tied around with a cream-colored ribbon.

Her heart jumps before she can help it. _Already_?

But that's ridiculous. How would he have found her? It couldn't have been that man. Why would he just leave a knife without seeing her?

But there's no one else it could be. Her father is still in prison—while she stays here doing nothing. If Nice or someone else here wanted to give her a knife—which they don't; they don't trust her—they would just give it in person. At the very least, they wouldn't leave it on the outside of the windowsill.

She picks up the knife and scans the area outside, but as she expects, there's no one. She closes the window and goes back to her table.

Unsheathing the knife reveals that it's almost a match for her ruined one. She turns it around a few times, so the blade glints in the last of the sunlight.

***

Claire leans into the shadow of the wall, watching the door of the Runorata warehouse. His nerves are singing, and he hopes the men show up here soon because he definitely needs to burn off some of this energy.

He couldn't wait around for Chane to find the knife, of course—he still has obligations to the Gandors. But news of her had come to him almost before he'd started looking, so he couldn't resist. She'll like it, he's sure.

When he's done here and he has the time to do it right, he'll go to her in person.

In the meantime, he should get her something else. Maybe a dress—she'd look wonderful in white.

***

The warehouse is dark, and the shadows outside darker, but perhaps that only helps Chane to recognize him. It had been dark on the roof of the train, too.

As he approaches she realizes she's wearing his dress and holding his knife. It seems immediately _wrong_ for him to see her like this. He's not her father. She still has no idea who he is.

Well. At least now she has a name. Claire Stanfield.

She raises her knife and keeps it pointed at his heart as he approaches.

He doesn't do anything. Just comes closer, and talks like he did on the roof of the train. For the past few days she couldn't remotely understand how she could have invited him to find her, but now her heart is jumping and her head spinning just like it did then.

He says he loves her. He says he wants to marry her.

It's doesn't make any sense. He doesn't know who she is any more than she does him. And why would he love her? Even if it's somehow true, she can't devote herself to him. It's not possible, no matter how much his earnest voice makes it seem so.

And yet she can't tell him that, can't reject him—couldn't even if she had the words to. There's something about him.

He's too close. At some point when she wasn't focused, she's lowered her knife.

The way he looks at her makes her almost grateful for the interruption. It makes her want something, and she doesn't know what to do with that feeling.

***

"But, well, it sort of all blew up before she could give me an answer." Claire shrugs. Clearly tonight wasn't the night. It doesn't matter—there will be other opportunities.

"Blew up?"

"In a fairly literal sense." He smiles wryly. "So it looks like I'll be around a while longer, at least. I have to keep trying for as long as it takes."

"Are you really sure about this, Claire?"

"Of course! The more I see her, the more I love her. She's amazing."

A sigh, and finally a smile. "That part generally comes before the marriage proposal, you know."

"Only if you're unsure."

***

It's too soon—nothing's settled in Chane's head at all, but she still goes. She walks out of the house almost before she's aware of having made the decision to.

Of course, she doesn't know where to find him, not exactly. From what she can gather, he's difficult to pin down. The club is a good bet, but she can't bring herself to go inside. Instead she scales the fire escape to the roof, not worrying about what the people inside see.

She waits for him. The white dress blocks the wind better than her black one.

It's not long before the sound of footsteps behind her make her turn.

"Did you come to accept my proposal?" His smile beams at her impossibly.

She shakes her head. She still can't do that.

"But you're here, and not trying to kill me. Does that mean you're giving me a chance?"

She nods.

He grins wider. "That's wonderful! You'll see, in the time you spend with me, that I'm not an ordinary person. I promise that everything I've said to you is true."

Her body noticeably relaxes at that. She's not sure she understands why; everything he's done has been incomprehensible. Why should she be reassured that it can continue like this?

But she is.

"Alright. Then, may I kiss you?" he asks. Just the words send a shock through her that makes it almost impossible to think.

She nods, once, barely an inclination of her head.

He touches the line of her jaw gently; cups her face with his hand. Her heart is already jumping, her skin warm, even before he leans down to press his lips to hers.


End file.
